Black Widow
by legendarytobes
Summary: Set post season 4. An internal affairs officer falls for Chloe but realizes she was always someone else's...


**Black Widow**

_For the prompt in Lucifer Bingo of "When hell freezes over."_

He met her on duty.

Mitchell should have known better. By now Detective Chloe Decker had a reputation, and not a good one. Her partner, Malcolm Reynolds had ended up first on a ventilator and then after a miraculous resurrection shot to death by her anyway. Granted, he'd been crooked and kidnapped her eight-year-old daughter, but that was far from the only skeleton in Chloe's closet. Far from the only bit of precinct bullshit she was embroiled in.

The next black mark on her record came with one Marcus Pierce, apparently moonlighting as the crime lord known as the Sinnerman. He'd been found stabbed to death by a blade no one could identify and in the middle of a crime scene that had kept forensic techs talking for years at their conferences. The bloodied, giant feathers everywhere alone were inexplicable. The cracked pillars and skylight shattered from the inside even harder to understand. But a second death of someone she'd not only worked with but been engaged to hung heavy over her like a shroud.

Third time was the charm, and that was where Mitchell came in. She'd been assigned to the Holla Bae case, and the scene everyone in three precincts reported in on because of the dozens of bodies piled high at The Mayan. None of it made a damn bit of sense, and her civilian consultant, Lucifer Morningstar, of all insane things, was nowhere to be found. As he questioned everyone involved with the Holla Bae case from her annoying ex-husband to the overly excitable tech, Mitchell heard the same refrain-Lucifer had been working with Chloe on it, but he must have skipped town.

The guy never came back.

So that was the Chloe Decker he met. The one with three dead or missing partners in her life. The one the entire precinct had dubbed the "Black Widow" and the one busted back down to uni after the Holla Bae case turned up irregularities that no one could account for, including her erstwhile consultant's prints all over the fake altar at The Mayan.

And maybe that was why things clicked at first. It wasn't intentional on Mitchell's part. Chloe Decker was many things, but gorgeous was top among them. Crystal blue eyes set in a heart-shaped face with even the delicate mole on her cheek appealing. And, yeah, Mitchell, being about Chloe's age, was also a teen guy in the late '90s, and he had definitely seen _Hot Tub High School_. Definitely more than once, and when it clicked for him exactly who she was, that she was _the_ Chloe Decker, then maybe a crush born two decades ago overtook him even when better judgment should have steered him away.

But he investigated her dutifully and wrote a detailed report about all the Holla Bae case irregularities. Then he and his senior partner, Martinez, both recommended that with her track record and the way she covered for her missing consultant, that Chloe Decker had no business being a full detective any longer. The only reason he was able to even convince Martinez not to recommend termination flat out was her amazing solve rate, something no department in California could even claim to come close to. That and he'd seen the photos of her daughter on her desk. He was sentimental, and he missed his own-split back to Illinois after a brutal divorce-but irregularities didn't mean Chloe Decker deserved to be without work at all.

Being a uni at almost forty would be bad enough. At least he'd found a way to give her a chance to make ends meet.

But despite all of that, despite knowing full well she was both someone who couldn't help dating (or whatever she'd been doing with her consultant) her coworkers and the fact that most of them ended up missing or six feet under, Mitchell couldn't get Chloe out of his mind. He waited a year until all of her IA case was settled, and after she'd had to adjust back to life as a regular beat cop, but it was longer than he anticipated to wait.

Mitchell had given her space.

Yet he couldn't help but seek Chloe out, like a moth and flame.

And things were good for a while. Great even. There was always something in her eyes, a shadowed pain he never asked about. He'd read her file and with as much loss as she'd suffered-father shot in the line of duty, dead fiancé who'd turned out to be a criminal, a run of the mill divorce which Mitchell knew from experience was an oxymoron, and the vanished partner she'd wrecked her career for-it would have been stranger if regret and sadness didn't haunt her, at least late at night. After a good dinner with her or an evening at the movies, he'd see it. That just death of the light in her eyes, like they'd been turned down by a dimmer switch.

But maybe his fate had been sealed when he'd been sixteen and smuggled the VHS home from his friend Benji's house. Maybe it had become a foregone conclusion when he'd interviewed her at The Mayan and felt like he'd been struck by lightning. Or even when he'd called her a year after everything, when he should have let it go, and talked her into coffee. Whatever it was, however sad she was and much she struggled, Mitchell couldn't let her go.

So, he threw himself into dating and then the best proposal he could give her. After six years of dating, it probably felt late, but he'd been gun shy after a bad marriage, and she'd…the carnage in her wake was still legendary among the LAPD. Besides, it seemed easier to talk of marriage and unions when Trixie was already at college at USC.

When it would be less awkward co-parenting with Dan.

She agreed, and at first, they thought of eloping. He suggested something quick in Vegas, but she balked at that and didn't really say much for days. It was only after speaking with her friend Ella, that Mitchell realized what a faux pas that had been. How boneheaded. Then, he suggested a courthouse quickie, something small and simple, since their relationship was stable yet not flashy…a courthouse wedding would have fit them.

Chloe agreed at first, but a few days later admitted that it had been almost twenty years since everything the first time with Dan, and that he was special enough to try the big church thing again. Even though Mitchell was nervous about a big ceremony-had his own memories of Fiona and everything gone wrong-he agreed to it. After six years-plus in Chloe Decker's orbit, he never really had a choice but to offer her everything she ever wanted on a silver platter.

And then some.

Somewhere along the way, he noticed when the actions became robotic. The planning became something Ella mostly handled. When he and she had to make decisions together, Chloe deferred absentmindedly to him. He won the cake debate without a fight even if he asked for something tart with passion fruit, and he expected Chloe to fight for chocolate cake as it was Trixie's favorite, and she'd be the maid of honor.

He could tell things were breaking before they finally snapped.

But what Mitchell didn't count on was the "forever hold your peace" being interrupted in such spectacular fashion that he'd assumed he'd found himself forced into a remake of _The Graduate_. They'd gotten through the vows and everything else, the idea of "let no man pull asunder," and then _he_ came.

The consultant. The man still wanted for questioning about what exactly had happened during the carnage at The Mayan close to eight years ago.

He strode down the aisle with a grace and confidence that felt insufferable, adding insult to Mitchell's injury. The three-piece suit impeccably tailored but something about it off somehow, it hung askew, and the red pocket square seemed stained with ash and other unmentionable things. The man-Lucifer wasn't it and what the fuck-focused his entire gaze on Chloe like she was his world. Clearly, she was, if that was the only reason he'd come back to Los Angeles.

But even then, there was something in his eyes, something feral and dangerous that made Mitchell wonder not for the first time if he was more than a witness for The Mayan Massacre. It made Mitchell back up a step or three, especially when he'd noticed Lucifer's eyes flash red and surely, he'd imagined that.

Chloe cried seeing him. Cried and then slapped him, telling him how dare he show up after leaving her. Mitchell thought there was hope then, thought he'd maybe have a chance for this to work out. For her to remember how good things had been with him. How steady and dependable.

Then, she dragged him to the side room off the nave where she'd dressed and hung out with her bridesmaids before the service. The whole of the confused wedding goers could hear the fight, the shouting-muffled by the stone-and then other noises. Ones that eventually turned amorous and led to grandparents gripping their grandchildren's ears for fear of their immortal souls. One of her other bridesmaids, that insufferable and far too blunt Maze, wolf whistled and shouted to no one in particular, "About time Decker!"

It was then Mitchell knew it was over.

And that he should have listened to the whispers and more about Chloe Decker. There was more than one way to be done in by a Black Widow, and he'd rather be actually dead than feel his heart shatter for the second time in his life.

The rest of the not-wedding passed in a blur. Somehow, he found himself sitting on the stone steps even as the sun set, as everything ended and crashed around him. He was alone but had promised his sister he'd get back to the hotel, that he'd let his family comfort him soon enough. The last thing he expected was for _him_ to find Mitchell sitting there.

The suit was more askew than it had been when Lucifer had stormed up the aisle, and Mitchell knew damn well why that was. The other man's hair was mussed, and lipstick stained the corner of his collar. Chloe's lipstick. His…no not his any longer but once his _fianceé's_ lipstick.

Lucifer offered him a flask. And even though Mitchell glared at him, he took it. He could use the extra booze, and he wasn't too proud to take it from anyone.

"Mate, don't take it too hard," Lucifer said.

"I'm not your anything." He took a swig and appreciated how smooth it went down. Lucifer liked the good stuff.

The former consultant nodded. "I couldn't…I never wanted to leave in the first place. Had to call in every favor I ever had with my siblings to get a deal made. Maybe had to call in half the favors I had in place here too, and that's a lot of 'em."

"I love her, you know?"

Did his voice really sound that small or was that all in Mitchell's imagination?

Lucifer took a second-really?-flask from his coat and guzzled half of it. "Believe me, I know that. She's a bloody miracle, that one, but she's not for you. Never was." He looked at him and there was that flash again, something deep and unsettling in his eyes that Mitchell recognized. Something deeply buried and atavistic inside begged Mitchell not to focus too much harder. Whatever Lucifer was…he was _wrong_. Off in a way that Mitchell didn't want to understand. "I am sorry it happened this way. Didn't exactly expect her to find another bloke. I spent what felt like millions of years clawing my way back to her. My timing is shit for you, but it is what it is."

"This is the worst day of my life."

Lucifer drank again. "There will be others, mate."

He wasn't sure if Lucifer meant more terrible days or women, and Mitchell didn't want to know.

"Maybe, and maybe…" he hesitated at that, at all the sadness tinged around Chloe's eyes and the far off looks to nowhere. The ones that had only become more frequent in their wedding planning. "Maybe she was never mine to begin with."

Lucifer chuckled but there was no warmth in the laugh, nothing but bitterness. "Trust me, here. The two of you would only belong together when hell freezes over, and that's not something I'm about to let happen. Ever."

The other man smiled at Mitchell, but it was cold. More a threat than anything that could ever be considered reassuring. A chill settled over him, and he stood. His sister would be waiting for him at the hotel, and he had no interest in dealing any longer with the strange and sometimes lethal life of Chloe Decker.

It had cost him too much already.

After all, there was more than one way to be done in by a Black Widow, wasn't there?


End file.
